Why JCGAU · our approach
How we price, procure, administer and hand over work, described as mechanisms you can test rather than values you have to take on trust.
How to read this page
Values are difficult to check before you sign. Mechanisms are not, so this page is written in mechanisms.
A client choosing a builder is trying to answer one question: what will this company actually do when something goes wrong, which it will. Adjectives do not answer that. Mechanisms do, because a mechanism is either in the contract or it is not.
So this page describes how we work rather than how we would like to be described. Everything on it is either something you can see in the documents before you sign, or something you can hold us to afterwards.
Where we prefer to start
Four mechanisms
The people who prepare the tender are the people who deliver it. Nothing is handed across an internal boundary, so what was priced and what is understood on site are the same thing.
Packages are advertised to the market rather than issued to a closed panel. It takes longer and it is the single largest reason our prices hold up under scrutiny.
Instructions, variations, delays and decisions are recorded and issued. Not because we expect a dispute, but because the projects that end badly are almost always the ones where nobody can reconstruct what was agreed.
The director works with the tendering and estimating team on every submission, so the final review is captured before a price is issued, and remains involved across the project life cycle through to handover. That is a deliberate constraint on how much work we carry at once.
What we will tell you early
Each of these is a scope question, and a scope question answered on day one is worth more to you than the same question answered in month four.
Choosing how to procure
Before anyone prices anything, you are choosing who carries the design risk and when you want price certainty. Those two answers decide most of what follows.
| Route | Who carries design risk | When you get price certainty | It suits you when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Construct only AS 4000 family | You do, through your consultant team. The builder prices what is drawn. | At tender, once the documented set is complete. | The design matters to you, you have a consultant team you trust, and you can wait for full documentation before you know the number. |
| Design and construct AS 4902 family | The builder does, once the design is novated or developed to the brief. | Earlier, at contract, against a brief and a preliminary design. | You want one point of accountability for design and price, and you are willing to fix the brief rather than control every detail. |
| Managing contractor | Shared. The design proceeds while trade packages are let progressively. | Progressively, package by package, rather than at one point. | The programme cannot wait for full documentation, and you would rather see the real cost of each package as it is let. |
| Early contractor involvement | Nobody yet. The builder joins the design team before the contract is settled. | As a range first, then firmed as the design resolves. | The site or the tenancy is unusual, and buildability and cost need to shape the design rather than react to it. |
There is no universally correct route. The wrong one is usually chosen by default rather than by decision, which is why we raise it in the first conversation.
What a project looks like at your value band
Usually construct only or design and construct against a lease date. A project manager carries it commercially and a site manager is present whenever trades are on the floor. Reporting is monthly in writing with weekly site minutes. The two things that most often move the outcome are base building capacity, which has to be confirmed by the building owner in writing rather than assumed, and access, because a booking sheet and a goods lift decide the sequence more often than the drawings do.
Frequently design and construct, where the operational requirement is clear and the building is the wrapper around it. Full-time site management from earthworks to handover. The two that most often move the outcome are ground conditions, which are worth a proper geotechnical investigation before the price is fixed, and the services and authority connections, whose lead times run longer than most programmes assume.
Usually construct only or managing contractor, with the staging agreed before the contract rather than negotiated during it. A site manager per active stage, and a written stage handover for each. The two that most often move the outcome are the separation between construction and occupation, which is a safety and compliance question rather than a courtesy, and the sequence of temporary services, because a building that must stay open cannot lose power, fire protection or egress for a day.
Working in a building that stays open
After-hours and weekend works, noisy-works windows agreed against tenant hours, and a programme built around them rather than a programme that discovers them.
Hoarding, hard boundaries, separate egress, dust and smoke isolation, and fire system isolations managed as certified changes with the building compliant throughout.
Lift and dock bookings, delivery routes, protection of finished areas, and a plan for what happens to the largest single item before the design is fixed.
Dilapidation surveys before we start, condition photography, and a record of what has been installed over what, because that becomes the make-good position at the end of the lease.
How a Melbourne or Sydney project is actually staffed
We have people on the ground in each state. Site management is local, permanently, and it is not a person flown in for the week.
Every project has site management based in the state the project is in, present for the duration of the works. We do not run a project by visiting it.
South Australia works through a development application under the Planning, Development and Infrastructure Act. Victoria works through a planning permit and a building permit issued by a registered building surveyor. New South Wales works through the development consent or complying development path with the design and building practitioner regime over the top. These are different processes with different timings, and each is run by people who work in that system.
Tendering, estimating and contract administration are run as one team across all three states, which is what keeps the price, the contract and the reporting consistent wherever the project is. It is also why the person who priced your job can answer a question about it in month six.
The director works with the tendering and estimating team on every submission and stays involved across the project life cycle, in every state. There is one escalation path and it does not change depending on which city you are in.
A mechanism is either in the contract or it is not. An adjective is neither.
Plan. Build. Advance.
How the work is governed
Written quality, safety and environmental management plans, in use on live projects, with records kept to be produced. They are written and operating, and they are not third-party certified. We say which, because the difference matters to a procurement panel and we would rather they heard it from us.
Induction, competency and licence expiry are managed in a controlled digital system rather than a folder in a site office, which means the answer to who is on site today and what they are qualified to do is a live one.
Packages advertised through the open market, so a trade price is tested rather than assumed, and so a client can see that it was.
Progress claims assessed against work in place, variations priced before they proceed, delays notified when they occur. The same discipline we apply when we sit on the client’s side of the table.
Three registrations, all in the company name, all with their conditions published on this site rather than described. Searchable without asking us.
We work on Kaurna Country in Adelaide, on the lands of the Kulin Nations in Melbourne and on Gadigal and Dharug Country in Sydney, and we acknowledge their Traditional Custodians and Elders past and present.
Questions
Up to $20 million under a single contract, across commercial, industrial and, in South Australia and Victoria, residential work within our registered classes.
A named project team, with the director involved through tendering, estimating and the project life cycle, and contactable on every job. That is the deliberate consequence of a capacity limit rather than a marketing line.
They are written and in use, and they are not third-party certified. We will not imply otherwise, and we will provide the plans and the records on request.
Not the same project. We will act for you or build for you, and the rule is written into the appointment rather than left to good intentions.
South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales, with teams on the ground in each. We hold building registrations in the company name in two of the three: licensed builder BLD 344769 in South Australia, and standalone Victorian registrations CCB-L 100384 commercial and CDB-U 101761 domestic. New South Wales work is delivered under the design and building practitioner regime. Each state is run by its own team rather than serviced from another city.
The most useful conversations start before there is a documented set to price, when the question is still what the site or the tenancy will actually carry.
Talk to a construction directorRelated
About JCGAU